On 9 March 2001, at 10:40, At the house, Brandes claimed that the intended effects were not kicking in, but that he was instead having mild hallucinations of moving animal shapes. Brandes drank some
schnapps to calm himself and was later determined to have had a
blood alcohol content of 1,4‰. At around 18:30, Meiwes made his first attempt at castrating Brandes. Because he had difficulty cutting into the flesh, Meiwes then used a sharper blade to cut off Brandes' penis. Brandes cried out in pain, but was dismayed that the sensation was not as intense as hoped. After Meiwes bandaged the wound, the pair attempted to
consume Brandes' penis together. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw but could not, because it was too tough and, as he put it, "chewy". Meiwes then fried the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, wine, and garlic; he then fried it with some of Brandes' fat, but by then it was too burnt to be consumed by either man. According to court officials who saw the video (which has not been made public), Brandes may already have been too weakened from blood loss to eat any of his own penis. Disappointed by this outcome, Brandes told Meiwes, "If I hold out until morning, we can still have my balls for breakfast. You get one, I get one".
Disposal of body and later meetings Meiwes dismembered and
ate the corpse over the next ten months, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes and consuming up to of the flesh. The bones were buried in the ground of the estate, while the head of Brandes, initially kept in deep freeze, was also buried six months after his death. According to prosecutors, Meiwes committed the act for sexual pleasure. Meiwes for his part claimed that he had now "assimilated" Brandes, and that he possessed better English and math skills from consuming his flesh. The family of Brandes did not report him missing and a missing report by his boyfriend on 12 March 2001 found no leads after Brandes left Berlin.
Arrest On 9 July 2002, a 23-year-old Austrian university student from
Innsbruck, browsing online using a
search engine with the key words "Horror and Nervous Thrills", found one of Meiwes' new advertisements and wrote an e-mail to Meiwes, asking if he had actually killed anyone. When Meiwes answered in the affirmative, the student responded with disgust and disapproval and on 27 October of the same year, the student reported Meiwes' e-mail address to the authorities on suspicions of homicide.
Wiesbaden police took two months to identify "Franky" as Armin Meiwes. Meiwes was subjected to a house search on 10 December 2002 and agreed to enter police custody in
Bad Hersfeld for questioning. Investigators found the "slaughter room" and the remains of Brandes, portioned into three bags, in the freezer, but could not identify it as human flesh on first glance. The bags were nevertheless confiscated and sent in for analysis to the Institute for Forensic Medicine in
Giessen. Meanwhile, during a three-hour interrogation, Meiwes admitted to the exchange with the Austrian student and affirmed that he would, as written in his advert, kill someone with their express permission, but refused to answer questions pertaining to the suspicious meat found in his residence. Based on these responses, Meiwes was charged with representation of violence (''''), but released since there was not enough evidence to keep him in remand. The same day, Meiwes called his lawyer, Harald Ermel, and confessed to the murder. Meiwes was advised to contact police, to whom he repeated his confession and agreed to turn himself in at his lawyer's office in Rotenburg. On 11 December, police recovered body parts in the yard and personal belongings of Brandes. Only the head, hands, feet, and a few of the bones were found. Meiwes had pointed out the burial locations and handed in a wristwatch owned by Brandes he wore at the time of his arrest. In total, 1,742
diskettes, 228
video cassettes, 221
hard drives, 16
PCs, 95
CD-ROMs and 23
magnetic-tapes were confiscated from Meiwes' home. Of these, only 21 of the cassettes were deemed case-related. The same evening, two
Hesse State Police officers reviewed the tape, but did not watch it completely, reasoning that they "satisfied the evidentiary requirements" by transcribing the mutilation and act of killing alone, with no need to watch and document the dismemberment. On 13 December, police conducted a second search of Meiwes' property with
sniffer dogs to ensure that no other body parts were buried. On 19 December, the case was passed to Hesse
LKA and a special investigative commission was formed. Most of Meiwes' later partners were identified, of whom one was criminally charged. Jörg Buse faced legal action on suspicion as an accomplice/conspiracy of murder for offering to provide victims to Meiwes, but the case was suspended, with a monetary fine and compulsory psychiatric counselling imposed. Buse was required to write apology letters to the two colleagues he had named, but neither provided responses. Eugen A., listed as a "slaughter colleague" in Meiwes' contacts, was tried for representation of violence because he received four photos of Brandes' dead body via e-mail, two on 21 February 2002 and another two on 5 December upon request. While in jail, Meiwes sold the rights to his life story to the German magazine
Stern. During interviews, Meiwes initially described his actions as
assisted suicide. The trial acknowledged the agreement of the victim as not occurring under force, but emphasised that this did not make the act of killing legal, with special consideration for Brandes' impaired mental state, possibly further altered by his intake of sedative drugs, at the time of his death. During the trial, a 19-minute snippet of the four-hour tape depicting the murder of Brandes was played. The case attracted considerable media attention. When speaking to a German newspaper, Meiwes admitted to cannibalising Brandes and expressed regret for his actions. He added he wanted to write a biography with the aim of deterring anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps. Websites dedicated to Meiwes started appearing after his 2002 arrest, with people advertising for willing victims. "They should go for treatment, so it doesn't escalate like it did with me", said Meiwes. While in prison, Meiwes has since become a vegetarian. From prison, he kept correspondence with
criminologist Petra Klages and a former neighbour from Wüstefeld. because he killed for sexual gratification, a motive proved by his having videotaped the crime. The court ruled that the original trial had ignored the significance of the video in disproving the argument that Meiwes only killed because he had been asked to kill. On 10 May 2006, the
higher regional court of
Frankfurt am Main convicted Meiwes of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Incarceration Between 2006 and 2018, Meiwes was imprisoned at , a
sociotherapeutic correctional facility. In June 2018, he was transferred to JVA Kassel I, where he remained as of August 2025. As of 2020, Meiwes has been allowed to go outside of prison for supervised excursions in disguise around town in a different state. In prison, Meiwes works at the laundry and often attends church service. and August 2020. A complaint filed against the higher regional court of Frankfurt for the former appeal denial was dismissed with the specific reason that Meiwes was deemed likely for
recidivism. In July 2025, after replacing his original attorney earlier in the year, Meiwes again requested early release. Frankfurt's
public prosecutor's office filed for a denial of the request but agreed after talks with Meiwes and his legal defence to have any hearings related to the request adjourned until 2026. Meiwes' new lawyer, Frank Füglein, also complained that Meiwes had been deprived of regular
psychotherapy appointments and supervised furlough in recent years. Following reports on the release request in August 2025, Meiwes wrote a letter to the
Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine newspaper, as he disagreed with their description of the cannibalism. Meiwes emphasised that while he and Brandes had attempted to eat the latter's penis, neither managed to actually consume it, also repeating that the castration occurred at Brandes' insistence. == Aftermath ==